Nissan Power 88 Plan Aims to Increase Market Share, Launch New Vehicle Every Six Months

Nissan is launching an aggressive new plan to grab eight percent of the global automotive market, and increase operating profit by eight percent by 2016. The strategy, called Power 88, requires Nissan to launch a new vehicle every six months and expand its reach to 92 percent of all new-car markets.

The key pillar of the Power 88 strategy involves launching a new vehicle every six months through 2016 -- for a total of 66 products globally covering 92 percent of all new-vehicle markets. To keep up with the expanded vehicle sales, Nissan also will increase its number of dealerships from 6000 to 7500 globally by 2016.

Nissan’s focus on advanced automotive technologies will lead the company to debut a claimed 90 new technologies, an average of 15 per year. The company will continue to invest heavily in vehicle electrification, and hopes that the Renault-Nissan group will log a combined 1.5 million electric-vehicle sales by 2016.

Like many other automakers, Nissan will also focus on expansion in emerging markets. Nissan wants a 10-percent share of the Chinese auto market, and will expand production capacity there to 1.2 million cars annually by 2012. China is already Nissan’s most important sales market by volume. In Brazil, a new Nissan facility will add production capacity of 200,000 vehicles. The company will continue its Mobility for All strategy of introducing low-cost vehicles for emerging markets, and hopes to be a global leader in light-commercial vehicles like the NV commercial van. A version of the NV will become the official taxi of New York City from 2013.

As for premium brand Infiniti, the Power 88 plan calls for it to grow from 150,000 global sales in 2010 to 500,000 by 2016. That would give Infiniti a 10-percent share of the global luxury-brand market. The brand will offer 10 vehicles in 70 different countries. Reuters reports that the 2016 Infiniti lineup will include an electric vehicle and three other new models. We already know that the Infiniti range will expand once the JX crossover bows in spring 2012 as a 2013 model, but we’ll have to wait to learn about any other new vehicles.

The ambitious announcement comes at the same time that Nissan reported an expected 15.4-percent decrease in profits for fiscal-year 2011. The profit drop was attributed to the aftermath of the Great East Japan Earthquake that crippled the Japanese auto industry. In spite of that, Nissan is predicting that overall vehicle sales will climb 9.9 percent year-over-year, to 4.6 million vehicles in fiscal-year 2011.